1y ago

Why aren’t motherboards mostly USB-C by now?

philip.greenspun.com Why aren’t motherboards mostly USB-C by now?

I’m beginning to think that the Windows PC that I built in 2015 is ready for retirement (though if Joe Biden can be president at 78, maybe this PC can last until 2029?). In looking at new des…

Why aren’t motherboards mostly USB-C by now?::I’m beginning to think that the Windows PC that I built in 2015 is ready for retirement (though if Joe Biden can be president at 78, maybe this PC can last until 2029?). In looking at new des…

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1y ago

Why aren't motherboards mostly USB-C by now? (2021)

philip.greenspun.com /blog/2021/03/22/why-arent-motherboards-mostly-usb-c-by-now/

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103 comments

I'd honestly love to see everything USB-C-ified. Would be great to finally just have one standard to concern yourself with.
- Nobody tell them about the massively fragmented set of standards using the USB-C connection.
  
  I know, but at least we'd only have one physical connector at that point. While there are indeed a lot of standards for USB C, many of them are not all that relevant in day-to-day use when you're mostly just looking to connect some basic USB peripherals like a mouse, a thumb drive or charge your phone.
  
  I disagree.
  More technical people would understand, but your average Joe would try to plug in their external monitor and RMA PC because it's not working, same with slow charging phone speed etc.
  I'm honestly all in for keeping USB-A for basic I/O devices. Although inventing an USB-A female connector that works both sides and is backwards compatible would be neat.
  
  Don't think this didn't happen for people that wished to copy something from or to an external drive, and RMAd as they found it to be too slow. They plugged it into a black usb 2.0 port instead of a red one because they thought it was dangerous. Ow wait, no. That motherboard manufacturer used green usb ports for USB3.2. What do you mean you didn't try it because you didn't know what they were for? Your hard drive cable has blue plugs, didn't you at least try the blue ports? No? Because there was a lighting bolt printed nearby... I understand you don't want to lose the data. Do you have a backup? ... You should. Ok, well you can test it with the mouse or keyboard. Yes, the top two usb ports do have the icons for those, but that doesn't mean... Oh, you already put the pc in the mail. See you in 2 weeks then.
  Also, switchable usb-a is already a thing, but is very flimsy due to the necessity of moving parts.
  
  The difference between different generations of USB-A are speeds. If user notices differences in speeds, they are way more likely to know the difference between USB versions.
  The differences between USB-C and USB-A are capabilities. USB-C is already confusing for many people. My boss (IT Project Manager) thought he could use USB-C to connect his monitor, while he couldn't because his laptop doesn't support DisplayPort over USB-C.
  There is already a huge mess with USB-C capabilities. Some of them are just glorified USB-A ports, some of them have DisplayPort over USB-C, some of them are Thunderbolt (with different versions or course), some of them are QC (with different versions - once again).
  I can just imagine the confusion from users, who expect all of the USB-C ports in the motherboard to work the same way, but then only one or two ports from 8 total have DisplayPort capabilities.
  "If it doesn't fit it means it's not supposed to go here" is a great way to tell the user what capabilities the port has.
  
  Yeah that is true. But I was more or less portraying that customers gonna custom-er. And PCs will be RMA-ed for stupid reasons no matter what. And usb-a also had customers confused, sure c is worse. But don't make it out to be that a was so magnificent. SuperSpeed, QC, trying to plug the male printer side into the ethernet port, different grades of cables for different speeds, expecting a bump in speed because they bought a 'golden cable' while their pc and peripheral were on usb 2.1, all these things are also in usb a forms.
  Because I had all those conversation. The man was aware, yes. But wasn't aware enough and too afraid to lose his precious data. (But wasn't willing to pay for extra drives or remote storage. But that is a different story.)

103 comments